NWN 2 - 3 fresh videos feat FEARGUS the MAN

[Fresh]

NWN2 vids

http://streamingmovies.ign.com/pc/artic ... wmvlow.wmv

http://streamingmovies.ign.com/pc/artic ... wmvlow.wmv

http://streamingmovies.ign.com/pc/artic ... wmvlow.wmv

spotted @ rpgdots forums


Lots of info, almost makes me want to play the game.

 

[Surlent]

Not much in the way of story progression in the oc there, but otherwise interesting watch. The UI seems nice on first look, let's hope controls are good too.
Backgrounds for characters like in Arcanum, but did Feargus say they added some dialogue specifically for those in the beginning in your home town ? Nice touch.
Starting stats would seem to be all 8 with 32 points to distribute (+modifiers ofcourse).

 

[trystero]

Backgrounds for characters like in Arcanum, but did Feargus say they added some dialogue specifically for those in the beginning in your home town ? Nice touch.

Yes, he did... Humm... I never played the first NWN, but these videos have piqued my interest in the second.

 

[sheek]

Looks too Oblivionish to me. All they talked about was character generation and graphics technicalities. Plus it's D&D-based.

 

[Micmu]

Hmm, videos are in a pretty poor quality and resolution is too high to see the text. They didn't raise my interest, I'm still pretty much skeptic about it.

Looks too Oblivionish to me.

How so? It looks and plays like a PC RPG and has an actual ruleset.
At least we know there is a capable writer in the team. How good the story (collect blade pieces, ungh!!1) and dialogues will be, remains to be seen... That "click to continue" dialogue example was frightening, though.
They were talking a lot about the toolset, which didn't sound so good to people who are interested in content (and have played it's predecessor).

 

[DemonKing]

I thought the videos looked pretty decent...although the interiors did look like a slightly gussied up version of the original.

I'm also looking forward to full party control again!

 

[sheek]

Hmm, videos are in a pretty poor quality and resolution is too high to see the text. They didn't raise my interest, I'm still pretty much skeptic about it.

Looks too Oblivionish to me.

How so? It looks and plays like a PC RPG and has an actual ruleset.
At least we know there is a capable writer in the team. How good the story (collect blade pieces, ungh!!1) and dialogues will be, remains to be seen... That "click to continue" dialogue example was frightening, though.
They were talking a lot about the toolset, which didn't sound so good to people who are interested in content (and have played it's predecessor).

The character interaction and the combat. It doesn't look fascinating.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

One thing that sounded pretty silly was that the "recommended" button (A) was supposed to be a new feature (that was in the first one) and (B) gives you a "well-rounded" character. When will games stop fucking around with "well-rounded" defaults that are, ergo, shitty as hell compared to specialized builds? It's been like this in every RPG I've ever played: the default party is composed of horribly mis-built characters who function at least 20%, maybe more like 50%, below the level of a handcrafted party, esp. a party crafted by a player who knows what he's doing. If the point of the recommended button is to let newbie incompetent players get into the game without wading through all the character building, why not give them *good* characters? And why not have multiple "recommendations" where the game asks, "Do you want to be a fighter type, mage type, cleric type, thief type?" and walks you through what the choices mean. Anyway, just a pet peeve.

--EDIT--

Did I hear FU right that "Dance Liquidfame" is a "great name" that they hired a "linguistics expert" to "build" for them. HUH?

 

[sheek]

One thing that sounded pretty silly was that the "recommended" button (A) was supposed to be a new feature (that was in the first one) and (B) gives you a "well-rounded" character. When will games stop fucking around with "well-rounded" defaults that are, ergo, shitty as hell compared to specialized builds? It's been like this in every RPG I've ever played: the default party is composed of horribly mis-built characters who function at least 20%, maybe more like 50%, below the level of a handcrafted party, esp. a party crafted by a player who knows what he's doing. If the point of the recommended button is to let newbie incompetent players get into the game without wading through all the character building, why not give them *good* characters? And why not have multiple "recommendations" where the game asks, "Do you want to be a fighter type, mage type, cleric type, thief type?" and walks you through what the choices mean. Anyway, just a pet peeve.

--EDIT--

Did I hear FU right that "Dance Liquidfame" is a "great name" that they hired a "linguistics expert" to "build" for them. HUH?

Who cares about that? Recommended characters are not a big deal, if you don't want to use it don't click the option... What does matter is they have the stupid D&D ruleset and character generation and the whole world made up of people drawn from x number of combinations of 'classes', 'races' and 'backgrounds'. This kind of game design is for lazy developers and nostalgic nerds.

 

[Xi]

"recommended"

"Our character creation system is tedious and boring. Here is a button that allows you to skip it!"

It's a sign of the times. They are simply catering to the mass market. It's no longer a niche product though I don't think it ever was ment to be.


Edit: On a side note the game does look intriguing. Hopefully they pull it off.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

@ Sheek -- Well, I dunno. I don't care enough about AD&D to argue the merits / demerits of the creation system. I just found character creation in NWN (and BG) pretty tedious. Usually, it's fairly obvious how to min-max your character, and to the extent it's not obvious, that strikes me as a design flaw, not a feature. Accordingly, why make players puzzle through it, if all they want is an archetype build? You should default with archetype builds that mix-maxed to do well at whatever the type does, and then to the extent the player wants to deviate and do something atypical, he should adjust from there. Including a "recommended" build and then having it give you an inferior character is just obnoxious.

@ Xi -- It's not a feature of modern gaming at all, but I appreciate that this forum's GUT of "stupid gamers ruining gaming" needs exposition in every thread. As I pointed out, every oldschool RPG I can think of that feature character creation and premade characters / parties. That's functionally identical to the current "recommended" system, no? But those games, like this game, always had the default builds really poorly set up, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why that is.

--EDIT--

Also, I've wondered why these games that feature "change your character's appearance" systems don't give you a preset character based on the choices you make about stats, class, and background (or a few preset choices), rather than giving the same stolid young man in all scenarios.

 

[Xi]

@ Xi -- It's not a feature of modern gaming at all, but I appreciate that this forum's GUT of "stupid gamers ruining gaming" needs exposition in every thread. As I pointed out, every oldschool RPG I can think of that feature character creation and premade characters / parties. That's functionally identical to the current "recommended" system, no? But those games, like this game, always had the default builds really poorly set up, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why that is.

I've always done custom classes, but what you say is true. It's just a progression of the prebuilt character system. I guess I like to design my alter-ego and am not appriciative of the game offering to do that for me.

Your last sentence is a better description of why people choose to go custom class. I think it's a min/maxing thing mostly. It allows the player more freedom to design a character that can over power the system.

When one accessibility feature like this enters the game, it really makes me question how many others there might be. The game does look promising though.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

I've got no problem with accessibility, and in terms of design, it can only go up from NWN. The interface still looks kind of blah, but better than NWN, and the party control is promising.

 

[kingcomrade]

Hum. Doesn't look all that interesting, kinda reminded me of Dungeon Siege. Does that Feargus guy have a speech impediment?

 

[Volourn]

"All they talked about was character generation and graphics technicalities."

This is bullshit. Did you even watch all 3 videos?

 

[Zomg]

Also, I've wondered why these games that feature "change your character's appearance" systems don't give you a preset character based on the choices you make about stats, class, and background (or a few preset choices), rather than giving the same stolid young man in all scenarios.

I guess deformable meshes (to make different body types that still wear the same armor/clothing graphics, etc.) are still technologically/economically unfeasible for some reason. I know WoW uses them to let an orc with fantasy megashoulders and a skinny elf use the same piece of shoulder art on a piece of clothing (often to oddball effect), and GTA:SA has a main character that gets bulkier or wider as his strength and fitness stats change. Actually, I don't know if either example is created by using subtly different discrete meshes (presumably very expensive) or genuine continuous recalculation.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

It doesn't necessarily have to be deformable. You could just make some poor intern create 80 templates or whatever. I'm sure you could get ample volunteers to do it for free. It just seemed silly to me that the Barbarian-Brute doesn't give you a suitably Conan or Viking like appearance.

 

[kingcomrade]

PASS CONAN HIS SLIPPERS, PUNY CRETIN!!!

 

[sheek]

"All they talked about was character generation and graphics technicalities."

This is bullshit. Did you even watch all 3 videos?

I did.

Did you?

 

[Volourn]

You surely didn't. If you did, you'd know that post was a lie. Unless you are blind.

Since when is dialogue either character creation or graphics related? How 'bout companion control? And, the list goes on.

Don't make shit up, shitter.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hum. Doesn't look all that interesting, kinda reminded me of Dungeon Siege.

Based on what?

The game is a carbon copy of NWN, except prettier.

At worst, we can excpet a 20 hours long IWD (or IWD II, if you really want to hit rock bottom). At best, who knows, i don't feel confident enough in guessing, Etherway, nothing like Dungeon Siege.

With party control, this is going to be infinity in 3d (which is what NWN should have been, fucking idiots).

Better then nothing i guess...

 

[kingcomrade]

Uh, it reminded me of Dungeon Siege based on the fact that it reminded me of Dungeon Siege.

 

[HotSnack]

Their GUI looks uncannily a lot like guild war's one. Right down to the creation screen even.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Uh, it reminded me of Dungeon Siege based on the fact that it reminded me of Dungeon Siege.

You need a new set of eyes on top of a replacement memory unit.

Now this reminds me of Dungeon Siege...

 

[aboyd]

"All they talked about was character generation and graphics technicalities."

This is bullshit. Did you even watch all 3 videos?

You're like a computer. You're taking that comment way too literally. Give it some human interpretation, and it's a little more obvious that the gist of what is being said is that the videos spent more time on character gen & graphics than the poster would like.

Of course, sheek could have just said that. But sheek probably didn't expect to be dealing with someone who couldn't do a little post-processing, so to speak.

And if sheek is saying what I think sheek is saying, then I would agree to a certain extent. I did find myself thinking, "hmm... FU kind of wants to talk a lot about graphics, and he's sure spending a lot of time on the char gen interface."

Still, the other info he provided, such as for the toolkit, was nice. And the ability to control a party again is just sooo good.

-Tony